If Chael Sonnen becomes UFC champion, does it matter that he didn’t really earn his shot at the belt? Why is Ronda Rousey ducking Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos? What is going on with all this TRT use in MMA?

In our latest installment of Twitter Mailbag, MMAjunkie.com’s Ben Fowlkes answers those questions and many more, including his thoughts on Benson Henderson, Donald Cerrone and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

Check out all the questions below, and submit your own at @BenFowlkesMMA.

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Kevin Mills @godsdog44
@benfowlkesMMA #tmb let’s say Chael somehow beats Jones in April; will it matter that he didn’t earn the title shot if he earns the title?

Say a golden retriever becomes President of the United States and does a great job. We’re talking balanced budget, record low unemployment rates, solid foreign policy, with every citizen chanting “four more years!” every time they see him trotting past with an American flag bandana on, flanked a team of pit bulls as his secret service detail. In that instance, would it matter that he was a golden retriever? I mean, assuming he could produce both a birth certificate and tax returns? Or would we all be so happy with our golden retriever President that we wouldn’t care how or why he got there?

OK, so Chael Sonnen’s no golden retriever, but you get the point. If he wins the title in a convincing, non-controversial fashion, that will justify the UFC’s matchmaking decisions to some extent. It wouldn’t change the fact that the UFC made a nonsensical title fight for the sake of reality TV ratings, but it would at least prove that the whole thing wasn’t completely insane. Trouble is, I like Sonnen’s chances of beating Jon Jones only slightly better than I like a golden retriever’s chances of becoming President.

sevenwithcheese @sevenwithcheese
@benfowlkesMMA Why does Dana continually praise Ronda, when she is openly ducking the only money fight that is available to her?

I don’t think it’s fair to say Ronda Rousey is ducking “Cyborg” Santos just because she doesn’t want to go up in weight to fight a bigger, stronger opponent who very recently gave us all good reason to wonder how she got so big and strong in the first place. That’s totally reasonable to me. Why should Rousey, the champion at 135 pounds, be the one who has to change her diet and training, especially when it’s Santos who would benefit the most from the opportunity? If anything, Santos should be begging for the chance to come back, demonstrate that she can complete clean, and take on the most famous female fighter since Gina Carano. Santos is the one who needs the image rehabilitation. She’s also the one who needs Rousey’s star power to rub off on her, not the other way around. Even if she has to starve herself to get to 135 pounds, it would be worth it, both financially and otherwise.

Just look around at the headlines lately. Rousey is doing just fine without “Cyborg.” It’s Santos who needs to be willing to make some compromises if she wants to stay relevant.

JoseMonkey @josemonkey
@benfowlkesMMA Some have suggested Bendo would be too small at WW, but we’ve heard forever that he’s a “huge” LW. Can both be true? #TMB

My colleague Steven Marrocco had an interesting story this week about UFC lightweight champ Ben Henderson’s ongoing battle with his weight. It paints a picture of a man who is cutting a lot of weight – maybe somewhere north of 30 pounds, with much of it coming off in the two days before weigh-ins – just to make the 155-pound limit.

That’s a big cut for a lightweight, but it allows Henderson to use his size, his reach, and his strength to his advantage against typically shorter and smaller opponents. If he goes up to welterweight, there goes his reach advantage, and maybe some of his ability to muscle guys around in the clinch and on the mat. I don’t know if that means he’d have no prayer at welterweight – he’d be slightly undersized, but not hopelessly so. More than anything, it might mean he eventually has to choose between enjoying his food and changing his game. Judging by Marrocco’s description, it sounds like he’s still eating well enough at the moment.

Nick Higgins @HigginsNick
@benfowlkesMMA Do you believe anything Conte said about the “anonymous” North Cal gym and 50% of its UFC fighters choosing to Live Strong?

Live Strong, huh? I see what you did there. Clever. As for Victor Conte, it’s tough to know what to make of him. On one hand, you’d like to believe the story of redemption he’s peddling. The whole ‘doping cheat turned crusader for truth and justice’ stuff sounds nice, but why is trying so hard to get his name in the headlines over this stuff? And if he really was helping fighters compete clean at this Northern California gym that shall not be named but could probably be pretty accurately guessed at, considering the details he provided, isn’t kind of a jerk move to put them on blast for having half their UFC fighters on PEDs? Conte’s basically advancing a rumor at that point, since even if his version is totally accurate he’s still going off what someone else told him about what other people were doing. Does that make him wrong about PED usage in MMA, or what should be done to fight it? Not necessarily. But I’m also not sure he’s the dude we want to put all our faith in to clean up our beloved sport.

Baron Curb @BaronCurb
@benfowlkesMMA which do you think will happen first in NY … medicinal marijuana or legal MMA? I’m hoping for both the same week!

That would indeed be a magical week. Then we could do a big UFC event at Madison Square Garden, with Nick Diaz, Dave Herman and Matt Riddle all sprinkled throughout the fight card, with Willie Nelson serving as special guest referee. Count me in. I’m sure it would be worth the long flight from my home in Montana – a state which currently allows both MMA and medical marijuana. Because we’re awesome.

Ryan Denison @rdenison13
@benfowlkesMMA Has Dana White ever given his thoughts on TRT? Seems odd that as divisive as it is I can’t remember him addressing it? #TMB

He has. Or rather, he has given a couple different versions of his thoughts, depending on who’s asking and when. This summer, before the big Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen rematch at UFC 148, he told ESPN that he’d make testosterone-replacement therapy illegal for fighters if it were up to him. He also, perhaps unintentionally, cast doubt on those fighters in his employ who do use it when he suggested that low testosterone could be a result of past performance-enhancing drug use.

“If you don’t abuse stuff earlier in your career, you’ll never need to use that kind of junk,” White said at the time. That was early July. By August, White was singing a different tune, telling FOX Sports that he supported the use of TRT by older fighters, saying: “I think it’s great, it’s absolutely fair, it’s legal.”

Keep in mind, that’s all in one summer. So what does he really think? The position I’ve heard White advocate most often is a mix of three points: 1) Some guys may legitimately need it due to legitimately low testosterone levels, 2) It’s vulnerable to abuse if not policed properly by the athletic commissions (aka “the government,” but more on that later), 3) It’s legal, so what do you want from him? In other words, seems like White is no hurry to make a big, bold step on the use of TRT in the UFC. That’ll have to be someone else’s job.

Michael Evans @MikeEvansMMA
@benfowlkesMMA #tmb Who would be a good opponent for Cerrone if he isn’t willing to wait for Showtime to heal?

I’m sure Donald Cerrone would be up for just about anybody, up to and including live bulls, but I’d really like to see that Anthony Pettis fight, so I hope he waits. I’d be nice if Cerrone could be just a tad more Jon Jones and a little less “Tank” Abbott when it comes to his fight selection. I understand he wants to stay busy and get paid, but this would be a good time to exercise a little patience and see if there isn’t a title shot in it for him. In the meantime, maybe he can fight Dana White over that dangerous activities clause in the UFC bout agreements.

Ken Byrne @TheKenByrne
@benfowlkesMMA are you worried that this period of mma could look like the last decade in cycling regarding PEDs?

In case you couldn’t tell from this week’s episode of the CME podcast, I’m worried about a lot of stuff when it comes to PEDs in MMA. It’s bad enough when cyclists use it to cross the finish line faster. It’s so much worse when trained fighters are using it to become better at bashing one another’s heads in. With TRT being approved so readily for “older” fighters (guys over 30, in other words), there’s also the danger that they’ll stick around the sport longer than their bodies would naturally allow, thus enabling them to take more punishment than they otherwise would have. Imagine what that could lead to a few years down the road. Suddenly being called a cheater in a bicycle race seems pretty unimportant.

Luke Williamson @ltw0303
@benfowlkesMMA Dana said he couldnt create a entire WMMA div because there was only 3-4 elite, name 4 135 fights for Ronda..whats changed?

This is basically the point I was making in yesterday’s column, but OK, four 135-pound fights, you say? How about: Sara McMann, Liz Carmouche, Shayna Baszler, and Alexis Davis. The problem is, you can’t just plug them in one by one against Rousey and expect the audience to know who they are and why they matter. That’s why, if the UFC is serious about a women’s division, it needs to get serious about more than just one fighter. Ideally, it should also get serious about more than one weight class.

Jeff Weaver @Dashamburgler
@benfowlkesMMA is the ufc trying to get rid of lil nog? Wrestling is his weakness yet he keeps getting matched against better wrestlers

In fairness, there are an awful lot of good wrestlers in the UFC’s light heavyweight division. It’s not the UFC’s job to protect Antonio Rogerio Nogueira from takedowns; it’s his job to show he can do something to defend against them. I don’t think the UFC’s trying to get rid of him (he is coming off that win over Tito Ortiz, who was far from being the best the UFC had to offer when they fought), but neither is it trying to preserve him by keeping him away from fighters who can exploit his weaknesses. He’s got to either find a way to stay upright or else find a way to finish off his back.

Jason Rule @JasonRule
@benfowlkesMMA #tmb what happens to Bellator if ratings don’t pick up with their Spike migration and Viacom loses interest?

The same thing that happens to any program on TV that doesn’t draw strong ratings: nothing good.

Baltasar Shepard @BaltasarShepard
@benfowlkesMMA Does the UFC use the “government” card as a way to sidestep blame for, or combat the use of, PEDs?

As anyone who’s heard one of Dana White’s steroid rants already knows, he loves to reference “the government” when talking about oversight from state athletic commissions. That makes them sound more powerful, more expansive, and at least a little bit scary. I mean, the government has put people in space. It’s invaded countries and killed terrorists. What’s one Las Vegas fight promoter supposed to do against all that might?

Of course, if White gets upset with something “the government” does, he has no problem pushing back. Take a look at the UFC’s crusade against the government in New York, for example, or his routine lambasting of the judges and referees selected by the government to work UFC events. It’s funny how quickly things can go from being the work of an enormous, omnipotent government to being a bunch of lazy state bureaucrats who are killing this sport with their incompetence.

At the same time, it’s not solely a copout. Unlike other major pro sports leagues, the UFC operates under some form of direct government oversight that varies depending on which state it happens to be holding its events in. Some state commissions are relatively good, others are notoriously horrible, most are somewhere in the middle. Sometimes there is no commission and the UFC has to provide its own regulation, which is better than nothing, but not by much. It’s true that the government, in the form of state athletic commissions, is responsible for maintaining certain standards and doing drug testing. But if those commissions prove to be either too financially strapped to pull that off or else not very good at it, why should it fall on the UFC to pick up the slack at its own expense?

That’s a fair point, even if White adopts some disingenuous rhetoric to make it from time to time. I think the question we should be asking is whether this system is working. State athletic commissions vary so much in terms of quality and experience. In some places they might as well not even exist. In some countries they don’t. What MMA needs is one regulatory body that’s the same the world over. There’s been some big talk coming out of Sweden (where they looooove regulatory bodies of all kinds) about forming one, but that’s a long way away, if it happens at all. Clearly, we aren’t there yet. And sadly, the government isn’t getting it done here in the states.

Alex @Alex_Newfie
@benfowlkesMMA how much would @MMAjunkie have to pay you to get you to go bull riding with Cowboy Cerrone? #TMB

The same price they would have to pay to get me to go bull-riding alone: a whole hell of a lot. We’re talking Anderson Silva money.

Duncan Priebe @DuncanPriebe
@benfowlkesMMA Rampage has expressed renewed passion and seems genuinely motivated to fight Teixeira. How many pounds over will he be? #TMB

“Rampage” Jackson is one of those fighters who’s been promising a reinvention and a renewed focus for what seems like forever. Whether he’s swearing off ketchup or other junk food, getting on or off TRT, into or out of some new gym, there’s always some promise of a change that’s just around the corner. And yet, when fight time comes, it’s usually more or less the same old “Rampage.” Fortunately for him, that guy is still pretty tough, and can still hurt people when he’s of a mind to. But if he wants me to believe that his heart is in this again, I’m going to need to see proof of it in the cage first, and there’s been little of that from him lately.

It might be time for us to abandon the idea of a No. 1 contender fight. The UFC certainly feels no obligation to stick to its word on those. As we’ve seen, it’s totally possible to be named the No. 1 contender and still not get the next crack at the champion. In Dan Henderson’s case, it’s possible to be named No. 1 contender and not get either of the next two title shots, so why should we continue acting like the No. 1 contender is a real thing? The best we can do is a look at a fight like the “Shogun” Rua vs. Alexander Gustafsson bout and say, if you want to fight for the title soon, it would be better to win than to lose. Probably.

Now then, as I step down off that particular soapbox I can tell you I’m taking Gustafsson in this one. He’s been off a little while, which is worrisome, but I still think he sticks and moves and keeps Rua at the end of his long, stinging strikes all night long.

Josh C @J05HC
@benfowlkesMMA #tmb as an MMA writer, are you disappointed, but also thrilled that there’s always some “crazy [poop]” going on?

Depends on the nature of the crazy [poop], to be honest. I like having stuff to write about, but not so much that I actually want there to be a steroid scandal or ridiculous title fight or some grave injustice just so I don’t have to think of my own ideas. Sometimes it’s nice to have a few non-eventful weeks. Makes you go out and find some stories rather than just looking to see what the Internet is talking about. If I had a choice, I’d rather write about interesting [poop] than crazy [poop]. Sometimes, however, it’s all the same [poop] no matter what you do.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie.com and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.com.

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